King Troll (The Fawn) at the New Diorama Theatre – review

Striking a careful balance between thriller, political drama and comedy, writer Sonali Bhattacharyya and director Milli Bhatia have created a new genre: Home Office horror.

Sisters Riya and Nikita, both in their 20s, arrived on the island when they were small children. But now if they want to stay, they have to prove themselves to the Home Office, and the requirements grow ever more impossible.

Realising there’s a gap in Riya’s paperwork, they track down one of their mum’s old acquaintances, Shashi, in the hope she’ll be able to account for the lost time. Instead, she gives them instructions for a dark magic that will fix all their problems: basically, it’s a grow-your-own-upper-middle-class-sycophantic-white-man kit.

This might not sound very scary, but when a man covered in what looks like uterine goop hobbles into your kitchen late at night and starts kissing your ankles, you might sing a different song.

Bhattacharyya’s writing is sharper than ever. Where in the past she sometimes leant on tight, witty dialogue to carry vigorous politics, this time she also writes a killer plot. Earnest political opinions are still aplenty, but they’re offset by the horrifically ridiculous: Nikita is the doe-eye idealist, trying to convince a young refugee that there’s still hope, while her sister is falling in love with a psychopathic fawn. It might seem a little on the nose, but the horror genre is the perfect place for hard contrast. It’s also a brilliant way to inject comedy in an otherwise dire situation.

Ayesha Dharker’s Shashi is fabulous as a disillusioned, scarily magical bag lady. Living on an industrial estate where the “nearest shop’s the motorway services”, she is a true outsider, with no social graces and a wicked grinning stare. The fact of Dharker playing both Shashi and the uptight, elegant landlady Mrs B doesn’t really bring anything to the plot, but certainly demonstrates Dharker’s magnetic talent.

Zainab Hasan and Safiyya Ingar’s sisterly chemistry is on point, bickering and moaning one minute, cracking up the next. Domnic Holmes’ Fawn is eerie and uncanny; his unnatural movement and speech, paired with the sisters’ easy familiarity, has the audience laughing and shivering simultaneously.

Rajha Shakiry’s set consists largely of a homely living room, back-dropped by tall, worn wire fencing, come to life by Elliot Griggs’ lighting, which focuses deftly from one to the other. The fencing serves as a constant reminder of impending deportation, but also of being trapped: this is Nikita and Riya’s home, their Home Office, as refugee Tahir (Diyar Bozkurt) points out; where else could they go?